A rising tide floats all boats. Except the ones with holes in the bottom. They sink faster.

That process works in reverse as well. For the better part of a decade, the Maple Leafs — the monolithic sporting interest of this city — have spent their seasons lowering the tide bar for what Toronto fans can expect of their teams. Mostly that’s amounted to across-the-board institutional listlessness and grinding disappointment.

We got used to losing. Perversely, it became a badge of honour — sticking with the squad through the bad times. With the lean years giving way to NHL fat, that tendency to forgive the inept and the infirm will recede.

The question facing everyone on the Toronto sporting scene not holding a hockey stick when they play is this — how do you stand out if the Leafs really are as good as we are beginning to believe they might be?

If the Leafs are contenders and will be for the foreseeable future, is the gaping window of forgiveness closing up on everyone else?

And now, say hello to your 2011(sort of)-12 Toronto Raptors.

Clearly, no team has been so put into the shade by a Leafs resurgence as the Raptors. Everyone else has at least a thread of hope dangling overhead.

The Blue Jays have a new playoff spot opening up for them; the Argos have a 100th anniversary Grey Cup to talk up; and Toronto FC long ago hit bottom and just kept digging.

Only this coming iteration of the Raptors maintains that feel of the classic first-decade-of-the-21st-century Toronto sports franchise — one that’s stepped on a banana peel and is riding it downhill into oblivion.

The Raptors are a month away from reintroducing themselves to the town. The battle cry for this year: “Just wait until the draft.”

The season will be short. The word “mercifully” belongs in that sentence somewhere. Maybe twice.

They have a new head coach. He was brought here to teach them how to play defence. Thanks to the lockout, he has two weeks to do that before they begin playing meaningful games.

Brick by brick — that’s how they built Rome. Arranging the bricks as they’re being dumped on top of him from a great height — that’s how Dwane Casey has to build the Raptors.

A lot of things could go right. They could end up with a schedule that gives the powerhouses in the west a pass, and one light on the heavy hitters in their own conference. The game-every-second-day pace might suit a young squad (or, more likely, not suit someone else).

In sports, lots of things rarely go right. The pain tends to spread itself around democratically — a little for everyone.

So while they’ve been fading from the scene for several years now, this could be the shortened season where the Raptors disappear altogether.

Not forever, but for now.

And that, in turn, could be a good thing.

Because if the terms of Toronto fandom are changing — if contending is becoming a fashionable prerequisite — it will do the Raptors (or any other team) no good to tread water. They will need to convince from the outset of a season and continue doing so for several months.

Ahead of the 2012-13 season, the Raptors will likely find themselves with substantial cap space and two top-five picks (if we count this year’s first-rounder, yet-to-arrive Lithuanian centre Jonas Valanciunas).

Between now and then, the Leafs could make the playoffs. The Jays could make the playoffs. The Argos could . . . well, the Leafs and the Jays could make the playoffs. Even if neither manages it, they will be spoken of in that context, which changes the conversation for everyone else.

It was passably permissible to be another loser in the bunch. It will be a popularity death sentence to be the one team that no one expects to ever get it right.

By that rationale, the coming basketball season is the one in which the Raptors disappear for a few months, and then show back up next fall to surprise everyone with their makeover.

It’s going to be another horrible season for those who care. That’s okay. They’re used to it by now. They should troll the Raptors’ season ticket holders list and ask those people to volunteer on crisis hotlines — they’ve proven they can deal with constant, grinding disappointment.

Like the rest of us, they have traditionally forgiven failure. That will change, and so the team must as well.

From now on, one hopes, the new normal is a city full of fans that reward success.

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